“There is no need to give phones to women and children. It distracts them and is useless. Why do women need phones? My mother, wife and sister never had mobile phones. They survived without one,” said Saini.

His comment has shocked women across the nation. Many have asked as who is he to decide whether women need mobile phones or not?

Saini is not the only politician or organisation which has come out with bizarre comments targeting women and their various rights.

Recently former Chief Minister of HaryanaOm Prakash Chautala had endorsed medieval ideas of Khap. Like the influential caste councils, Chautala also wants girls to be married off at an early age to control rising rape incidents. Khap panchayats want marriageable age limit should be abolished and girls should be married off as early as possible to decrease incidents of rape.

“Boys and girls should be married by the time they turn 16-year-old, so that they do not stray… this will decrease the incidents of rape,” Sube Singh, a Khap representative, said.

Another Khap member said, “As soon as the children attain puberty, it is natural for them to have sexual desires but when these are not fulfilled, they stray… so there should not be any minimum age limit for marriage.”

Almost akin to a Taliban-type diktat, a Khap panchayat in Baghpat in July, 2012 had also banned love marriages and barred women below 40 years from going out for shopping and using mobile phones. Meanwhile, a Khap leader recently had asked youngsters to refrain from eating junk food like chowmein.

The bizarre statement was made by Jitender Chhataar who said that men experience hormonal imbalances when they eat chowmein, momos and then they commit rape. In a shocking reaction to the recent spate of rape cases in Haryana, Khap panchayat members earlier blamed girls for such incidents.

One Khap Panchyat member gave a bizarre solution and suggested that the marriageable age for girls should be reduced to 16 years. When asked why rapes are occuring at this scale in Haryana, Sube Singh said that movies and television are to be blamed for rapes. “I believe this is happening because our youth are being badly influenced by cinema and television. I think that girls should be married at the age of 16, so that they have their husbands for their sexual needs, and they don’t need to go elsewhere. This way rapes will not occur,” commented Singh.

So now after khap panchayats, we need to fight this misogynist pig, Mayawati how can you have him in your party, throw him out now

In the context of deeply entranched patriarchal values and mindset coupled with rampant consumerist culture and alliance of reactionary and opportunist forces, there is almost a flood of cases of rape and violence against women in Haryana as is evident from 13 cases of gang rape taking place in just one month. This has created almost a terror like situation and insecurity in the minds of especially the young girls, working women and their families. The dalit women are particularly being targeted due to their more vulnerability.

The ruling Govt. in Haryana, instead of taking cognizance of the whole situation and punishing the culprits, has termed it as a “political conspiracy” to defame their rule and there ends its responsibility for providing a safe and secure governance. The opposition party led by Om Prakash Chautala Supremo has even gone ahead by taking sides with the khap panchayats and casteist forces and supporting their demand for lowering the marriageable age for young girls to 15 years. Majority of political parties and other forces, instead of understanding the gravity of the whole situation and fighting against this heinous crime, are unfortunately engaged in appeasing the casteist and reactionary forces for the safety of their vote banks. In order to fight against this shameful display of opportunism, it is left to the democratic minded and justice loving people of the state and the nation to collectively come forward to counter this dangerous trend and bring the criminals to book. At the same time we need to ensure appropriate action against those policemen and other administrative officers who do not fulfil their duties properly and show negligence and laxity in dealing with the criminals.

Simultaneously, we shall have to fight strongly against the neo liberal policies of the government so as to pressurise the state and ruling Govt. for proper and equal distribution of resources particularly to the women and the weaker sections so that they no longer remain soft targets for various kinds of violence and crimes. Along with this, there is a strong need for social reform movement at various levels of society against indecent portrayal l of women in media, against alcoholism and patriarchal values, traditions and mindset. All the conventional forces who are making the demand to lower the marriageable age should not be spared.

AIDWA calls upon all Women’s organisations, democratic forces and concerned individuals to join in the mass protest rallyto be held in Rohtak on 15th of October, 2012 at HUDA Complex Park at 11.00am. Our united efforts would undoubtedly help in a significant way to put a strong pressure on on the political and administrative forces to act in a responsible way in dealing with violence against women. We need to send a strong message to the criminal forces too that they can not escape scot free and would be strongly punished for any act of violence and crime.